TEHRAN (FNA)- Amnesty International announced that the United Arab Emirates (UAE) — a key partner of Saudi Arabia in a military aggression against and partial occupation of Yemen — and its allied local militia have been torturing captives at a network of clandestine prisons in Southern Yemen.

The rights group further revealed in a statement on Thursday that large numbers of Yemeni men had been subjected to enforced disappearance after being arbitrarily arrested by the Emirati and militia forces, Middle East News reported.

“The families of these detainees find themselves in an endless nightmare where their loved ones have been forcibly disappeared by UAE-backed forces. When they demand to know where their loved ones are held, or if they are even still alive, their requests are met with silence or intimidation,” Tirana Hassan, the director of crisis response at Amnesty International, stated.

Amnesty said in its statement that through an investigation it had conducted between March 2016 and May 2018 in the Southern provinces of Aden, Lahij, Abyan, Shabwah, and Hadhramaut, it had managed to document the widespread use of torture and other forms of ill treatment in Emirati facilities, including beatings, the use of electric shockers, and sexual violence.

“The UAE, operating in shadowy conditions in Southern Yemen, appears to have created a parallel security structure outside the law, where egregious violations continue to go unchecked,” Hassan stressed, adding that “ultimately these violations, which are taking place in the context of Yemen’s armed conflict, should be investigated as war crimes”.

Abu Dhabi has denied that it is involved in unlawful detention practices in Yemen, despite all the evidence to the contrary, according to the Amnesty.

The UN human rights office in Geneva has also said a number of Yemeni detainees have been subjected to ill-treatment, torture and sexual abuse by United Arab Emirates (UAE) soldiers.

"We have engaged with the UAE government on this issue and requested access to UAE-run prisons in the country but to date we have not been granted access," Liz Throssell, UN right office Spokeswoman stated.

"From the initial information that our office in Yemen has managed to gather, we have reason to believe that a number of Yemeni detainees have been subjected to ill-treatment, torture and sexual abuse by UAE soldiers," she added.

The UN agency is continuing to monitor the situation with a view to decide what follow-up steps are needed, she stressed.

The Associated Press (AP) revealed in a report in June that the United Arab Emirates (UAE) tortured Yemeni prisoners across 18 prisons in Yemen.

Hundreds of Yemeni prisoners were subject to sexual abuse in Southern Yemen, where the UAE focuses its foreign policy in Yemen. Fifteen UAE officers ordered Yemeni prisoners to undress and lie down for anal cavity checks, claiming they were looking for contraband mobile phones. The Yemeni prisoners who resisted were beaten until they bled, and threatened with barking dogs.

Hundreds of other detainees suffered similar sexual abuse on 10 March at Beir Ahmed prison in Southern Yemen, Aden, according to seven witnesses who spoke to the AP.

Despite countless human rights reports detailing abuse in Yemen, Marine Major Adrian Rankine-Galloway, Pentagon Spokesperson, announced that “US forces are required to report credible allegations of detainee abuse. We have received no credible allegations that would substantiate the allegations put forth in your line of question/story”.

US officials have acknowledged that American forces receive intelligence from UAE partners and have participated in interrogations in Yemen.

Witnesses told The Associated Press that Yemeni guards working under the direction of UAE officers used various methods of sexual torture and humiliation. Detainees were raped while other guards recorded the abuse on their mobile phones. Detainees had their genitals electrocuted and rocks hung from their testicles, and others were abused with wooden and steel poles.

“They strip you naked, then tie your hands to a steel pole from the right and the left so you are spread open in front of them. Then the sodomising starts,” one father of four stated.

The detainees smuggled letters and drawings to the AP describing the sexual abuse.

Of the five prisons, AP located, four of them are in Aden, Southern Yemen.

“One is at the Buriqa base – the headquarters for the Emirati forces. A second is at the house of Shallal Shaye, the Aden security chief closely allied with the UAE, and a third is at a nightclub-turned-prison called Wadah. The fourth is at Beir Ahmed, where the March atrocities occurred”, the AP investigation read.

US personnel have been seen at the Buriqa base, along with Colombian mercenaries, according to two prisoners and two security officials.

The detainees could not say whether the Americans, some of whom wear military uniforms, are members of the US government or mercenaries.

At the time, Amnesty called the AP report “shocking”, and stressed that US officials “continue to dismiss these credible allegations”.

Saudi Arabia has been striking Yemen since March 2015 to restore power to Mansour Hadi, a close ally of Riyadh. The Saudi-led aggression has so far killed at least 16,000 Yemenis, including hundreds of women and children.

Despite Riyadh's claims that it is bombing the positions of the Ansarullah fighters, Saudi bombers are flattening residential areas and civilian infrastructures.

According to several reports, the Saudi-led air campaign against Yemen has driven the impoverished country towards humanitarian disaster, as Saudi Arabia's deadly campaign prevented the patients from travelling abroad for treatment and blocked the entry of medicine into the war-torn country.

Yemen is the world’s largest humanitarian crisis with more than 22 million people in need and is seeing a spike in needs, fuelled by ongoing conflict, a collapsing economy and diminished social services and livelihoods.

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